In 1997 Postal was released and became probably one of the most controversial games ever. While in all other games so far you had to rescue the world/princesses/the city from aliens/criminals/monsters, the sole object of Postal is to accompany the Postal Dude (the manual tells he does not have a name for making it easier for the gamer to identify with him) on his rampage through several areas of a city in order to continually kill policemen, civil defense guards and even civilians, e.g. in the form of demonstrators or members of a brass-band. This is, in contrast to the sequel Postal 2, always free of irony or humor and together with the Postal Dude’s comments (“They never liked you!”) even contributes to a massively violent and almost inhuman atmosphere. Considering all that, it seems odd that the game was released in both an uncut and a slightly shortened version in Europe. The latter was mostly sold in the UK.

Compared were the censored European version and the uncut US-version.

Removed Executions

Most people do not just drop dead but lie on the ground screaming and bleeding for a short while until they die. Their decease can be accelerated by pressing the “X”-button, for the victims are being tranquilized immediately by a salvo from the machine gun. In the EU-version, the button has no effect at all. (Example-images from the uncensored American version)

Removed Elementary School Sequence

After you have finished all levels successfully, an automatic sequence in front of an elementary school follows. There, the Postal Dude starts to bombard playing kids with firebombs, a rocket launcher and an automatic pump gun. The kids, however, do not react but keep on walking in the Dude’s direction until he finally goes down and the image becomes blurred. The Euro-version lacks this scene.

Note: In order to avoid wrong conclusions, it must be explicitly mentioned that there is no censorship in the US-version when the kids are not injured by the missiles. This was deliberately done.